


Fever Dreams

by XRoguex1027



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Night Terrors, Nightmares, Plague, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 05:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XRoguex1027/pseuds/XRoguex1027
Summary: What Julian dreams about in the nightmare chapter, when he's tossing and turning, plagued by unwanted memories.





	Fever Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's in the tags but this gets a little gory. Also, this is my first published fanfic so enjoy and shower me with feedback so I can learn from my mistakes. All characters and settings in this fic are the property of NixHydra.

“Congratulations Magician, you’ve been promoted,” Valdemar speaks with an eerie softness like a purring cat.

Julian looks at Asra, something hard in his throat. He’s been perfectly content here in the library with easy access to books. Asra lounges behind him in a plush cushion with a tome of some kind resting on his knees. 

"Have I?" Asra asks still pretending to read.

“Indeed. The count has seen how resourceful you’ve been with the books provided and decided you might benefit from access too, shall we say, primary source material.” Valdemar taps their fingertips together eagerly.

Julian glances at Asra who hasn't done so much as open a book today. Surely this can't be good. The count would sooner have a slacker killed then promoted. 

"Now hold on just a moment." Julian blurts. "Asra is my partner, er medical partner. I think I have a right to conference with him before we reach a decision on his promotion."

In one sweeping movement, he wraps his arm around Asra's shoulders and guides him to a secluded corner of the library.

“ Julian, If it means that much to you, you can have the promotion, I'm not that concerned about it." Asra smiles.

"No. Asra, you don't understand...I think that courtier is going to do something to you."

"You mean kill me?"

"Or worse..." Julian's eyes widen.

"I don't think the count would go through all that trouble just to have me punished for slacking..."

"I'm just saying, let me talk us out of this one. Alright? For your sake."

Asra shrugs and Julian approaches Valdemar, arms crossed in front of him.

"As a Doctor, it is my professional opinion that the count is in no condition to be making such decisions." 

"I appreciate your input 069, but as the overseer of this operation I must object." Valdemar's smile tightens noticeably.

"Alright." Asra agrees. “I’ll do it.”

"No!" Julian doesn't refrain from shouting as he throws himself between Asra and Valdemar. Both of them cast him a look of shock.  
"He hasn't done anything, every day he just sits there on his pillow, looking at-at pictures! He doesn't even take notes."

A cocky smirk ignites on Julian’s face 

"If you want to promote somebody it should be me." 

Valdemar sighs but it disappears behind an irrepressible grin "So be it then. Congratulations doctor 069, you've been promoted." 

The last look Julian sees on Asra's face is one of confusion or anger, he doesn't have time to figure out which before Valdemar jerks his head to face the other way. 

Wordlessly, He follows the creepy courtier over to a bookshelf. Valdemar tips three books from their spot and the wall slides open to reveal an abysmal corridor.

“After you Doctor.” They say giving Julian a little shove.

***

Something swirls in the pit of Julian’s stomach as he walks down the corridor. The passageway is alight with dimly glowing torches, burning like the red eyes of the plague.

At the end of the hall, there is an enormous iron mechanism, it operates an elevator of some kind. Valdemar pulls the lever and urges Julian inside. The door clamors behind him and at once he is surrounded by darkness.

The elevator comes to an abrupt halt, jolting him forward so he has to grab the bars in order not to bang his head. He pulls his plague doctor’s mask on and begins to adjust it. Long fingers curl over his shoulder causing him to freeze as he steps out of the lift. 

“That won’t do you any good here.” Valdemar sneers.

Had-had he been there the whole time? He wasn't in the lift, was he?

Dr.Devorak hesitantly removes his mask. The room he arrives in is small. Heavy blood-stained aprons hang from sharp pegs along the wall and one or two masks hang with them. He reaches for one.

“That won’t do any good either, but if it makes you comfortable I suppose you can wear it.”

He pulls the mask on over his face, a much less intricate one than his. It’s flat and only covers the breathing parts.

“This way,” Valdemar says hastily sifting through a ring of keys. When they find the right one they plug it into the lock and the door screeches open.

 

There is a room of tables a few inches apart from each other. Leather straps dangle from a few while others have cadavers fastened to them…no, cadavers don’t scream. Electric jolts burst around the head of one kicking victim others cry out in empathetic agony.

 

Valdemar doesn’t seem fazed. If anything they seem manic. “Isn’t it marvelous?” They ask. Julian can only stand mouth agape

“Come. No time to waste.”

Valdemar leads him over to a row of wooden cages with iron-barred doors. As Valdemar proceeds to unlock one a horrible shrieking comes from the other side. 

"No! Not yet, not today."

Valdemar firmly takes the coughing victim, drags them kicking and screaming across the room and forces them down on the cold stone platform. Then they fasten thick leather straps over the wailing patient’s legs and torso.

Valdemar picks up a set of sheers and a scalpel from beside the subject. 

“Hold this.” Valdemar grins and hands the scalpel to the trembling doctor.

“Uh…what is this for?” Julian asks.

“For fun,” Valdemar says eyes wide.

“Oh well, if it’s fun you want I can think of a few alternatives, I know of a great tavern. The company there is much more... lively, I think you’d like it.”

Valdemar isn’t amused. Their eyes narrow with stern almost violent disapproval.

“Ah, I see you’re more of the staying in type.”

“I’m getting impatient 069…” Valdemar says with a tilt of their head.

"Maybe you could try community theater, you've certainly got a flair for the dramatic." 

Julian waggles his eyebrows to imply a grin hidden under his surgical mask.

Valdemar leers at him. "If it's a show you want...." 

A squelching noise is overshadowed by the guttural scream of the victim. Valdemar has just plunged the sheers directly into the patient's pupil.

"N-no please!" Julian dives for the sheers thinking maybe, somehow, he can pull them out. But as his nimble fingers grasp the handle, Valdemar's hand squeezes them. If Julian tries to maneuver them free he could hurt the patient even worse. 

"Very good." Valdemar murmurs in his ear. 

It's been so long since Julian has been praised that for a moment the compliment almost encourages him. But he ignores it. He knows better. 

Valdemar is prying Julian's thumb and index finger apart so that the fine sheers are expanding the hole in the gasping patient’s eye.

"I'm sorry-I'm so sorry." Julian chokes. 

***  
He’s exhausted, he needs sleep, he’s gone so long without it that he doesn’t even know what day it is. A chill courses through his body, it aches like a sunburn. 

How long has he been at this? Julian fiddles with a needle and thread trying to mend a small child’s punctured lung. He can’t be sure it’s from the plague and not the doctor.  
The sight of the half dead patients nauseates him. Mostly because he is pretty sure they arrived in better condition than they’re in now. 

Doctors are supposed to have steady hands but he can’t help that his are trembling. The dim light is making his eyes hurt. He squints hard trying to focus on the stitches.

Unable to massage his temples with his bloody hands, he winces and shakes his head.  
“Focus Ilya you’re almost there”. The patients he doesn’t save will go to the Lazarus and that pushes him to stay awake. But the room is starting to grow distant. He feels a numbness in his brain…fever.

No. He must keep working, he must not stop. Finally, he cuts the string on the little boy’s chest. He removes his gloves, now able to pinch the bridge of his nose. He’s alright, just a little tired. The next patient needs him.

He doesn’t notice how weak he has become until he approaches the next patient’s platform. Using two fingers he pulls their eye open to examine the sclera. Maybe it's the memory of his first patient but the sight triggers a sick feeling in his throat. Feverish heat seeps throughout Julian’s every aching muscle. Everything is fading, it seems to be melting into darkness. Then without warning, Julian collapses on the ground.

***

When he comes to he’s tossing and turning on a cot. He stops just long enough to realize his head is pounding. He doesn’t recognize where he is. The bottom part of a shelf looms above him, to his right a desk is pressed against the wall.

For a moment he thinks it might be his desk in the library but it’s changed. A voice startles him from outside the cage.

“Do you like your new office 069?”

“Where am I?” Julian asks through clenched teeth, trying to fight the pain.

“Not to worry. We haven’t sent you to the Lazarus…yet.”

Julian is about to slam himself against the door and demand to be let out but when he stands up he gets another head rush and has to catch himself on the corner of the desk.

 

“Now, Now, 069 we wouldn’t want you blacking out again would we?”

Julian holds his head in despair. "Tell me where I am.”

“You’re in the same place you always were, you’re just seeing it from a different perspective.” Valdemar curls their slender fingers around the bars blocking Julian’s view outside the tiny window. But he doesn’t have to see in order to deduce where he is.

Valdemar watches him from the other side of the door crooning to themselves.  
“I had hoped it would be you.” Valdemar grins “That magician is too mmmh…powerful to let me take command of him. Your self-sacrificing nature is too predictable 069, it made you such an easy target.”


End file.
